The guys who bat early in the lineup tend to get more at-bats over the course of a season. It stands to reason that you want guys who hit the ball well to have more at-bats.

The reason Pujols bats third is, you want high-percentage guys on base in front of him so he can move them around the bases or drive them home with his power. Typically the #4 spot, Cleanup, has a high batting average guy as well to ensure that they don't throw crap to your power hitter at #3, since if you put #3 on base, #4 is likely to drive him home.

Batting orders are complicated things, and managers typically put a lot of thought into them before every game.

There's lots more to get into, like who hits well against lefties/righties, or certain guys who have better luck against certain pitchers (or bad luck).

1) the expectation is that for each place lower in the lineup you hit, you will lose 18 plate appearances (assuming you play every inning of every game). So if the team leadoff hitters get 750 plate appearances, the expectation is that the 5th hitter will get 678 plate appearances, and 9th hitter will get 607 plate appearances. That matters a lot. You want to get your best hitters as many PA as possible, so you bat your better hitters near the top and your worst hitters near the bottom.

2) when your best hitters are at the plate, you ideally want a disproportionately high number of runners on base vs. when you have your worst hitters at the plate. obviously, you always want the bases loaded for everyone, but that isn't going to happen, so you try setting up the lineup in such a way to maximize the runners on base for your good hitters. going only by my 1st reason above, you'd put absolute best hitter #1 in the lineup, but in the first inning, you know there will be no one on base for him, so in that inning, you lose a lot of the value his power gives a team. also, you lose a little additional value in latter innings, because he'd be trying to drive in your 7th-9th hitters mainly, who are commonly among the least likely players to be on base to drive in, and they are more likely to make a final out in an inning, hurting your best player's chance to get to bat with runners on base.

**so teams have to balance the desire to get the best players as many PA as possible, and the desire to get the best players as many situation with runners on base to drive in as possible. the spot in the order most teams choose is #3 in the order for those hitters. some teams choose #4. many people claim that theoretically it can be best to bat your best hitter #2 in the lineup (especially if that hitter's value is highly tied into his OBP), but most often in real life teams choose #3 or #4 (giving up 36-54 total PA for that player, but allowing him to bat in good spots more than not).

**players whose value is almost entirely tied to getting on base (and to a lesser degree advancing around the bases), are generally considered ideal leadoff hitters. it doesn't matter too much that they won't have runners on base in the 1st inning, because they are fairly unlikely to drive those runners in anyway. and they make it more likely that the players batting after them will have a player on base when they get to the plate.

kickureface wrote:A lot of people seem to mention this, but what's the advantage of having a set order?Off the top of my head it allows for more RBI, like batting 4th u can hit a Grand slam.

I dont get why the good hitters are in the 3rd spot though, only possibility is 2 on base, like pujols.

Keep in mind I am completely new so any noob details you may leave out would actually probably help

I didn't read through the thread but the advantage of having a set order maximizes your potential production.

You want the top of the order to get on base, middle to hit for power/drive in runs and then the bottom is your worst hitters. Typically the top of the order sees 4 plate appearances each and assuming they get on base at least once, the middle of the order is guaranteed at least 4 appearances as well.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin

protection an additional reason. If you're hitting in front of Albert Pujols you're going to get a lot of pitches to hit. Vice versa if you're hitting with Jason Kendall behind you, you might get nothing to hit.

KCollins1304 wrote:As much as managers try to optimize their lineups to score the most runs, the difference between the least efficient order and most efficient order is not very much at all on a per game basis.

Probably not but it makes sense to get your best hitters up as much as possible.

Protection is a stupid concept.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin